[Grammar] Can we make exclamations with "how many"?

[Mike MC]

Is the following sentence correct:
Wow! How many toys (you have)!

 

[Charlie Bernstein]

The parentheses don't belong there. Otherwise, it's not bad informal English.

I'd probably say: "Wow! Look how many toys you have!"

 

[Rover_KE]

I'm imagining a mother shouting at her little boy:

'Isambard, how many times have I told you to stop playing with those toy trains! Get your backside over to the table and eat your broccoli or you'll never grow up to be an important man!'

 

[jutfrank]

I'm imagining a mother shouting at her little boy:

'Isambard, how many times have I told you to stop playing with those toy trains!

That's right, of course, but it isn't what the OP means since it uses how many in a different way, i.e., as a question word of quantification.

My answer to this is no, but I'm having trouble justifying it because How few toys you have! seems perfectly fine. I think that what makes me say the OP sentence is wrong is precisely that the phrase How many so strongly leads the listener to interpret it as a question word, which is not how it's intended. We're just so used to using and understanding how many in this quantifying question-word sense.

 

[Charlie Bernstein]

That's right, of course, but it isn't what the OP means since it uses how many in a different way, i.e., as a question word of quantification.

My answer to this is no, but I'm having trouble justifying it because How few toys you have! seems perfectly fine. I think that what makes me say the OP sentence is wrong is precisely that the phrase How many so strongly leads the listener to interpret it as a question word, which is not how it's intended. We're just so used to using and understanding how many in this quantifying question-word sense.

Yes. It's like Little Red Riding Hood: "Grandma! What big teeth you have!"

 

[emsr2d2]

In BrE, it's quite common to use "How many + noun?!" as an exclamation/question. The tone of voice would express the surprise.

 

[jutfrank]

In BrE, it's quite common to use "How many + noun?!" as an exclamation/question.

When Mike MC says 'exclamations', he's talking about a particular sentence form, not about exclamatory utterances in general, and not about interrogatives or reduced interrogatives (which is what I think you might mean here).

Grandma! What big teeth you have!
Oh, look! How lovely.
Thank you. How kind.
How sweet it is to be loved by you.

In these sentences, there's no questioning going on. In the final example, the part reading How sweet does not in any way elicit a graded answer (i.e., very sweet, quite sweet, etc.) It's very different in meaning from that in, say, How sweet do you like your tea? where there's a sense of degree of sweetness.

Similarly, when we use the words how many, we're talking about degree in a similar way (number is essentially a kind of degree). So in sentences with embedded questions, such as I don't know how many times I've told you not to say that or in short reduced exclamatory utterances like How many more times?!, the idea of number is equally there. In the OP sentence, it isn't there.

 

[Mike MC]

Grandma! What big teeth you have!
Oh, look! How lovely.
Thank you. How kind.
How sweet it is to be loved by you.

Thanks for the answer! How about the following exclamations: Are they the same? Are they both correct?
How you've grown!
How much you've grown!

 

[probus]

"How you've grown" is perfect. The other sounds unnatural to my ears, but I can't explain why.

 

[Mike MC]

"How you've grown" is perfect. The other sounds unnatural to my ears, but I can't explain why.

Even if it sounds unnatural, I think it's the origin of the common form, "How you've grown", and they're basically the same. I came to this conclusion when I saw the following:
"How do you like living in London (=how much do you like it)?"
Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
Or the following pair:

• You have no idea how I love you.
• You have no idea how much I love you.

Please correct me if I'm wrong.

 

[jutfrank]

I think it's the origin of the common form, "How you've grown", and they're basically the same.

I don't think that's right.

"How do you like living in London (=how much do you like it)?"

I don't think that's quite right, either, though it's a reasonable paraphrase for the purposes of a simple explanation.

Or the following pair:

• You have no idea how I love you.
• You have no idea how much I love you.

Please correct me if I'm wrong.

The first sentence there is no good. Only the second one is.